Catch Him If You Can

Bowers says he paid another $15,000 into Vaughn's account for trial expenses, for a total of $90,000. He says he is still repaying loans he and his family took out to cover his defense, but owes $18,000. Last March, Bowers says, he got a phone message from Mike Vaughn.

"Mike said there were issues and asked if I'd be willing to talk with the Attorney General," Bowers says. He spoke with an investigator later that day. "The [office of the] Attorney General told me that the agreement between Mike [Vaughn] and Bob was that Bob was supposed to get $5,000 and Mike was going to get $40,000. My brain does do math. There are serious numbers missing here -- $30,000 that Robert took that wasn't his."

Bowers says Vaughn never told him he would be good for the extra money, nor did Bowers ask him to take responsibility for the alleged theft. How Vaughn learned about the rip-off is uncertain. "I don't know how Owens got away with this for so long," Bowers says, "but I'm convinced that Mike didn't know this was going on. Maybe if they prosecute this guy, maybe we'll get some money back. Sure could use it."

It didn't take Bob Owens long to get a feel for prison life. He ingratiated himself with just about everyone, from the prison chaplain to members of the Aryan Brotherhood with whom he apparently forged a relationship.

Trying to pin down Owens' time in prison, like just about everything else involving him, is an exercise in murkiness. His prison file is suspiciously thin, and lacks, for example, details about his known infractions.

Though Owens had lost his appeal, he didn't quit trying to find a way out of prison. According to letters written by Owens and others about his supposed activities in prison, Owens allegedly helped to prevent the suicide of another inmate, fought a fire at great risk to himself and was an eyewitness to a murder that prison officials supposedly wanted to keep hushed up.

Within a few years behind bars, Owens asked corrections officials to write letters on his behalf. Many obliged.

In July 1988, prison chaplain Paul Belhumeur wrote, "I see a genuine effort on Robert Owens' part to grow as a Christian. I believe the man intelligent and sincere enough to learn his lesson through the time he has served."

Several corrections officers, including Owens' future wife, Terri, and another officer who later worked for Owens as an investigator, also wrote positive letters.

Owens also was working on other fronts. Somehow, he connected with Dale Nannenga, a narcotics officer with the Tempe Police Department then working as part of a larger drug interdiction task force.

Sergeant Dan Masters, a spokesman with the Tempe department, says, "Regarding Mr. Owens, we do not have any files or correspondence involving him," adding that, after a five-year hiatus, all such records are destroyed.

But attorney Anders Rosenquist and others -- two Superior Court judges and one prosecutor -- say Nannenga heavily promoted Owens' early release.

"It was real smooth and slick," Rosenquist says. "I know that Nannenga spoke with Jim Keppel, and they cut a deal behind my back. Keppel didn't object to anything, and when I heard about it, neither did I. Bob was going to finger some guy bringing in dope from Tucson and other things."

Keppel recalls that the Tempe cop and others told him that Owens had been providing valuable information to law enforcement. That sounded good enough for him.

Judge Ron Reinstein recalls an "informal" meeting that March at which members of law enforcement spoke on Owens' behalf.

"Everyone said nice things about Bob," Reinstein says. "I learned that they'd been checking him in and out of prison for a while, and he'd done good things for them."

The judge ordered Owens' immediate release from custody. It had been almost six and a half years since Judge Noyes had ordered the 20-year sentence.

His attorney at the time, Anders Rosenquist, says he believed that Owens had been rehabilitated: "Bob has that baby face and a really innocent smile. He looks so innocent. We were all so excited for him. He's just so clever and street-smart. But in hindsight, those years in jail just rounded him out."

Chris Frank has spent almost half of his 37 years behind bars, mostly on drug-related crimes.

Just released from prison a few weeks ago after serving a 10-year sentence as a repeat marijuana dealer, Frank is hoping not to bump into Bob Owens on the street anytime soon.

"I'll beat the shit out of him," says Frank, whose prison nickname was Thumper. "This Owens thing has sat hard on my soul for 10 years. I may have an organized-crime history, a gang history. But I'm a man. He's a snitch and a scumbag."

The size of the bust -- 109 pounds of pot -- was relatively small. But because of his past record, Frank was staring at a life sentence when Tempe police arrested him in 1995. The arresting officer was Dale Nannenga, who had vouched for Bob Owens before the 1993 release.